Victoria R Bricker
Biographic Data
| ID | 87190 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Victoria R Bricker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Victoria R |
| FAMILY NAME | Bricker |
| SIGNATURE | BRICKER V R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tulane University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 158 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The Maya 819-Day Count and Planetary Astronomy
Arguably the most enigmatic of the Maya calendar cycles, the 819-day count has challenged modern scholars for decades. Even today it is not completely explained and there are several areas for further research, including its relationship with the synodic periods of the planets visible to the naked eye. Earlier research has demonstrated a four-part, color-directional scheme for the 819-day count such that each of the calendar stations progress in …
A Comparison of Historical Evidence for Droughts in the Pre-Columbian Maya Codices with Climatological Evidence for Droughts during the Early and Late Classic Periods
An examination of several historical texts in the Maya codices reveals that droughts were a significant concern to the pre-Columbian Maya that ultimately resulted in the collapse of their civilization. The effects of such droughts mentioned in those texts include damage to crops, famine, and wildfires. The dates assigned to five droughts in the codical texts agree with dates obtained from the analysis of lacustrine cores and stalagmites in caves …
Where There's a Will, There's a Way
The Archivo Notarial del Estado in Mérida, Yucatán, contains a large collection of approximately 550 documents in the Maya language from the municipal records of Tekanto, a small town located about 54 kilometers east of Mérida. The earliest Maya documents in the collection bear a 1590 date, and the latest was written in 1835. Of these many documents, 373 are wills or testaments. The collection is particularly rich in wills for the years 1724 to 1…
Deciphering the Handwriting on the Wall
This study places the recently excavated ninth-century A.D. four-part calendrical notations at Xultun (Lunar Table, Ring Number, Long Count, and Multiplication Table) in the context of both Classic monumental inscriptions and astronomical knowledge in the Postclassic Dresden Codex. We demonstrate that the Lunar Table employed a formula attributed to Palenque and that it could have been used as a device to determine precisely where to break the se…
Schwa in the Modern Yucatecan Languages and Orthographic Evidence of Its Presence in Colonial Yucatecan Maya, Colonial Chontal, and Precolumbian Maya Hieroglyphic Texts
This article describes patterns of schwa found in spoken Yucatecan languages (Itsaj, Lacandon, Mopan, and Modern Yucatec) and Colonial Yucatec. It shows that although the alphabet used for recording Colonial Yucatec does not include schwa, it is nevertheless possible to demonstrate that Colonial Yucatec actually had schwa. We argue that variation in the spelling of roots and affixes that in other Yucatecan languages have schwa can be used for ide…
Thematic and Chronological Ties Between the Borgia and Madrid Codices Based on Records of Agricultural Pests in the Planting Almanacs
Despite differences in layout, the Lowland Maya planting almanacs on pages 24-31 of the Madrid Codex are structurally and iconographically similar to the almanacs on pages 27-28 of the Codex Borgia from highland Central Mexico. We compare the agricultural pests pictured in the two groups of almanacs, consider the seasonal variation in their feeding habits, relate them to the tonalpohualli/tzolkin dates mentioned in the almanacs, and conclude that…
Climatic Signatures in Yucatecan Wills and Death Records
Dense collections of eighteenth-century wills and death registers from Tekanto and Ixil, two towns in northern Yucatan, represent hitherto unexplored sources for documenting the relationship between natural disasters and mortality patterns among the Yucatecan Maya during colonial times. They provide detailed, sometimes daily, records of the impact of famines caused by multiyear droughts, hurricanes, and plagues of locusts on the agrarian populati…
The Ancient Languages of Asia and the Americas
This book, derived from the acclaimed Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, describes the ancient languages of Asia and the Americas, for the convenience of students and specialists working in that area. Each chapter of the work focuses on an individual language or, in some instances, a set of closely related varieties of a language. Providing a full descriptive presentation, each of these chapters examines the writing system(s…
Munro Sterling Edmonson (1924-2002)
New Perspectives on the Madrid Codex
Las coplas indígenas de México
Our aim is to demonstrate the universality of the use of semantic couplets in the rhetoric of the indigenous languages of Mexico. Textual examples are given in eight representative languages. Five more texts in Yucatec demonstrate the extension of the usage from the classic period to the present time
Bilingualism in the Maya Codices and the Books of Chilam Balam
The bilingualism recently discovered in the Maya codices by Robert Wald and Alfonso Lacadena has parallels in the Colonial Maya Books of Chilam Balam, which show both linguistic and scriptural bilingualism — involving, on the one hand, the Maya and Spanish languages, and on the other, the logosyllabic and alphabetic scripts of these two cultures. The article explores the continuities and discontinuities in these language contact phenomena with re…
Aspect, Deixis, and Voice
Preview this article: Aspect, Deixis, and Voice: Commentary on Papers by Wald and Lacadena, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/wll.3.1.09bri-1.gif
The Relationship Between Early Colonial Maya New Year's Ceremonies and Some Almanacs in the Madrid Codex
The Maya haab, the 365-day solar year, ended with a 5-day period called “Uayeb.” According to Bishop Diego de Landa, preparations for the commencement of a New Year began during the Uayeb period of the preceding year. This paper concerns the events and ceremonies encompassing the beginning of a Cauac year and discusses the parallels between Landa's descriptions of these events and certain figures and activities portrayed in several almanacs of th…
Placeless and Historical Laryngeals in Yucatec Maya
Astronomical Orientation of the Skyband Bench at Copán
The recently described Skyband Bench from a non-royal but elite residential complex (Group 8N-11) at the Classic Maya site of Copán, Honduras, bears a carving on its front edge that has explicitly astronomical content, including the Sun, the Moon, and venus. The building in which the Skyband Bench is located (Str. 8N-66C) is oriented to the horizon position of sunset on days of solar zenith passage. The iconographic references to the Moon and Ven…
Astronomical Orientation of the Skyband Bench at Copan
Alfonso Villa Rojas (1906-1998)
More on the Mars Table in the Dresden Codex
The suggestion made early in this century that pages 43b to 45b of the Dresden Codex are concerned with the synodic cycle of the planet Mars was vigorously opposed in mid-century by J. Eric S. Thompson but supported during the last decade by other scholarship, including our own. Thompson's interpretation, which Bruce Love has recently argued is correct, is certainly of historical interest and value, but it is no longer adequate in light of more r…
Astronomical References in the Throne Inscription of the Palace of the Governor at Uxmal
The Palace of the Governor at Uxmal is known from previous scholarship to be associated with Venus in terms of both its sculptural decoration and its orientation, which is aligned to an infrequently occurring extreme position of Venus on the horizon. A hieroglyphic inscription above the central doorway of the Palace is shown here to relate specifically to the concern with Venus and other celestial phenomena. Part of the inscription depicts zodiac…
The Zinacanteco Fiesta of San Sebastian
Advances in Maya Epigraphy
During the past twenty years, significant progress has been made in determining the nature of the Maya script, the subjects covered in the monumental inscriptions, the grammatical structure of Maya writing, and the astronomical content of hieroglyphic texts on the monuments and in the codices. The script is unequivocally logosyllabic in nature, consisting of a mixture of logographic, syllabic, and semantic signs. The monumental texts are primaril…
El desarrollo de la organización territorial maya desde la conquista
Yucatan. Escogi este lugar para mis estudios porque en los archivos del pueblo de Ebtun se habia descubierto una serie extensiva de documentos territoriales procedentes del periodo colonial. Aunque los documentos originales han desaparecido, una copia fotostatica sobrevive en la Biblioteca Tozzer de la Universidad Harvard. Esta copia fue transcrita y traducida por Ralph Roys, quien la publico en 1939 bajo el titulo The Titles ofEbtun
Itzá Maya Texts with a Grammatical Overview. Charles Andrew Hofling
Referential Practice
Phoneticism in Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing
A classic in the literature on the decipherment of Mayan writing, Phoneticism grew out of the famous Albany conference - a gathering of the leading Mayanists who were working within the modern, linguistically-informed paradigm for the analysis of Mayan hieroglyphic text. This volume contains nine seminal articles and appendixes. Many of the phonetic readings on which current epigraphic work depends are worked out and presented here. Several paper…
Nicknames and Social Structure in Zinacantan1
In this paper we attempt to coordinate a variety of analytic tools in the study of Zina-canteco naming practices, especially that of nicknaming. We suggest that nicknames, whose initial use is informal, are extended to members of distinct local descent groups and are gradually incorporated into the system of formal names by replacing Indian surnames. Viewing local descent groups as the principal point of articulation between the naming system and…
Directional Glyphs in Maya Inscriptions and Codices
A phonetic and semantic interpretation of the directional glyphs in Maya inscriptions and codices reveals that they did not refer to the cardinal directions. The glyphs that have been identified previously with north and south can be read phonetically as zenith and nadir, respectively. The glyphs for east and west refer semantically to the rising and setting sun. These data support Clemency Coggins's recent suggestion that Classic Maya directiona…
Climatic Signatures in Yucatecan Wills and Death Records
Dense collections of eighteenth-century wills and death registers from Tekanto and Ixil, two towns in northern Yucatan, represent hitherto unexplored sources for documenting the relationship between natural disasters and mortality patterns among the Yucatecan Maya during colonial times. They provide detailed, sometimes daily, records of the impact of famines caused by multiyear droughts, hurricanes, and plagues of locusts on the agrarian populati…
The Relationship Between Early Colonial Maya New Year's Ceremonies and Some Almanacs in the Madrid Codex
The Maya haab, the 365-day solar year, ended with a 5-day period called “Uayeb.” According to Bishop Diego de Landa, preparations for the commencement of a New Year began during the Uayeb period of the preceding year. This paper concerns the events and ceremonies encompassing the beginning of a Cauac year and discusses the parallels between Landa's descriptions of these events and certain figures and activities portrayed in several almanacs of th…
Classic Maya Prediction of Solar Eclipses [and Comments and Reply]
Work by earlier scholars has shown that the Dresden Codex contains a table of temporal intervals appropriate to the cyclic occurrence of solar eclipses. This paper demonstrates that if the Maya calendrical dates in the table are converted to the Gregorian calendar by using the so-called Modified Thompson 2 correlation constant, the table gives very accurate warnings of solar eclipses for the late-8th-century A.D. span to which it refers. During t…
Where There's a Will, There's a Way
The Archivo Notarial del Estado in Mérida, Yucatán, contains a large collection of approximately 550 documents in the Maya language from the municipal records of Tekanto, a small town located about 54 kilometers east of Mérida. The earliest Maya documents in the collection bear a 1590 date, and the latest was written in 1835. Of these many documents, 373 are wills or testaments. The collection is particularly rich in wills for the years 1724 to 1…
The Origin of the Maya Solar Calendar
Deciphering the Handwriting on the Wall
This study places the recently excavated ninth-century A.D. four-part calendrical notations at Xultun (Lunar Table, Ring Number, Long Count, and Multiplication Table) in the context of both Classic monumental inscriptions and astronomical knowledge in the Postclassic Dresden Codex. We demonstrate that the Lunar Table employed a formula attributed to Palenque and that it could have been used as a device to determine precisely where to break the se…
Advances in Maya Epigraphy
During the past twenty years, significant progress has been made in determining the nature of the Maya script, the subjects covered in the monumental inscriptions, the grammatical structure of Maya writing, and the astronomical content of hieroglyphic texts on the monuments and in the codices. The script is unequivocally logosyllabic in nature, consisting of a mixture of logographic, syllabic, and semantic signs. The monumental texts are primaril…
Placeless and Historical Laryngeals in Yucatec Maya
More on the Mars Table in the Dresden Codex
The suggestion made early in this century that pages 43b to 45b of the Dresden Codex are concerned with the synodic cycle of the planet Mars was vigorously opposed in mid-century by J. Eric S. Thompson but supported during the last decade by other scholarship, including our own. Thompson's interpretation, which Bruce Love has recently argued is correct, is certainly of historical interest and value, but it is no longer adequate in light of more r…
Astronomical References in the Throne Inscription of the Palace of the Governor at Uxmal
The Palace of the Governor at Uxmal is known from previous scholarship to be associated with Venus in terms of both its sculptural decoration and its orientation, which is aligned to an infrequently occurring extreme position of Venus on the horizon. A hieroglyphic inscription above the central doorway of the Palace is shown here to relate specifically to the concern with Venus and other celestial phenomena. Part of the inscription depicts zodiac…
Thematic and Chronological Ties Between the Borgia and Madrid Codices Based on Records of Agricultural Pests in the Planting Almanacs
Despite differences in layout, the Lowland Maya planting almanacs on pages 24-31 of the Madrid Codex are structurally and iconographically similar to the almanacs on pages 27-28 of the Codex Borgia from highland Central Mexico. We compare the agricultural pests pictured in the two groups of almanacs, consider the seasonal variation in their feeding habits, relate them to the tonalpohualli/tzolkin dates mentioned in the almanacs, and conclude that…
New Perspectives on the Madrid Codex
A Phonetic Glyph for Zenith
The recently discovered Tomb 12 at Rio Azul contains some evidence in support of my "zenith" reading for one of the collocations Closs reads as xaman, "north." A positionally literal reading of the astronomical glyphs associated with the directional collocations on the walls of that tomb is consistent with a directional system based on zenith and nadir, but not one based on north and south. Furthermore, Closs's reading does not account for the de…
Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico
Schwa in the Modern Yucatecan Languages and Orthographic Evidence of Its Presence in Colonial Yucatecan Maya, Colonial Chontal, and Precolumbian Maya Hieroglyphic Texts
This article describes patterns of schwa found in spoken Yucatecan languages (Itsaj, Lacandon, Mopan, and Modern Yucatec) and Colonial Yucatec. It shows that although the alphabet used for recording Colonial Yucatec does not include schwa, it is nevertheless possible to demonstrate that Colonial Yucatec actually had schwa. We argue that variation in the spelling of roots and affixes that in other Yucatecan languages have schwa can be used for ide…
Alfonso Villa Rojas (1906-1998)
"The Use of Logosyllabic Principles of Writing in "The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel
Some cognitive implications of informant variability in Zinacanteco speech classification
This paper describes some cases of inter- and intra-informant variability which cannot be explained in terms of social and contextual factors, and which do not seem to require probabilistic models to account for them. Analysis of several Zinacanteco speech taxonomies suggests that what are called variant responses are often only incomplete responses, and that if the cognitive system is represented as a taxonomy, then it is a taxonomy which is mad…
A Comparison of Historical Evidence for Droughts in the Pre-Columbian Maya Codices with Climatological Evidence for Droughts during the Early and Late Classic Periods
An examination of several historical texts in the Maya codices reveals that droughts were a significant concern to the pre-Columbian Maya that ultimately resulted in the collapse of their civilization. The effects of such droughts mentioned in those texts include damage to crops, famine, and wildfires. The dates assigned to five droughts in the codical texts agree with dates obtained from the analysis of lacustrine cores and stalagmites in caves …
Referential Practice
Nicknames and Social Structure in Zinacantan1
In this paper we attempt to coordinate a variety of analytic tools in the study of Zina-canteco naming practices, especially that of nicknaming. We suggest that nicknames, whose initial use is informal, are extended to members of distinct local descent groups and are gradually incorporated into the system of formal names by replacing Indian surnames. Viewing local descent groups as the principal point of articulation between the naming system and…
Methodology
Ethnology
Ethnology
Some cognitive implications of informant variability in Zinacanteco speech classification
This paper describes some cases of inter- and intra-informant variability which cannot be explained in terms of social and contextual factors, and which do not seem to require probabilistic models to account for them. Analysis of several Zinacanteco speech taxonomies suggests that what are called variant responses are often only incomplete responses, and that if the cognitive system is represented as a taxonomy, then it is a taxonomy which is mad…
John Beard Haviland, Gossip, reputation, and knowledge in Zinacantan. Chicago
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Clark Named President-Elect; Bricker, Buikstra, Gallaher Join Board
On the Maya Calendar
The Origin of the Maya Solar Calendar
Classic Maya Prediction of Solar Eclipses [and Comments and Reply]
Work by earlier scholars has shown that the Dresden Codex contains a table of temporal intervals appropriate to the cyclic occurrence of solar eclipses. This paper demonstrates that if the Maya calendrical dates in the table are converted to the Gregorian calendar by using the so-called Modified Thompson 2 correlation constant, the table gives very accurate warnings of solar eclipses for the late-8th-century A.D. span to which it refers. During t…
Directional Glyphs in Maya Inscriptions and Codices
A phonetic and semantic interpretation of the directional glyphs in Maya inscriptions and codices reveals that they did not refer to the cardinal directions. The glyphs that have been identified previously with north and south can be read phonetically as zenith and nadir, respectively. The glyphs for east and west refer semantically to the rising and setting sun. These data support Clemency Coggins's recent suggestion that Classic Maya directiona…
Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico
An Epoch of Miracles
"The Use of Logosyllabic Principles of Writing in "The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel
Class and Society in Central Chiapas
Phoneticism in Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing
A classic in the literature on the decipherment of Mayan writing, Phoneticism grew out of the famous Albany conference - a gathering of the leading Mayanists who were working within the modern, linguistically-informed paradigm for the analysis of Mayan hieroglyphic text. This volume contains nine seminal articles and appendixes. Many of the phonetic readings on which current epigraphic work depends are worked out and presented here. Several paper…
Continuities in Highland Maya Social Organization
Continuities in Highland Maya Social Organization innovatively combines ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological research to present the first study of the Maya community from preconquest to modern times
A Phonetic Glyph for Zenith
The recently discovered Tomb 12 at Rio Azul contains some evidence in support of my "zenith" reading for one of the collocations Closs reads as xaman, "north." A positionally literal reading of the astronomical glyphs associated with the directional collocations on the walls of that tomb is consistent with a directional system based on zenith and nadir, but not one based on north and south. Furthermore, Closs's reading does not account for the de…
Referential Practice
El desarrollo de la organización territorial maya desde la conquista
Yucatan. Escogi este lugar para mis estudios porque en los archivos del pueblo de Ebtun se habia descubierto una serie extensiva de documentos territoriales procedentes del periodo colonial. Aunque los documentos originales han desaparecido, una copia fotostatica sobrevive en la Biblioteca Tozzer de la Universidad Harvard. Esta copia fue transcrita y traducida por Ralph Roys, quien la publico en 1939 bajo el titulo The Titles ofEbtun
Itzá Maya Texts with a Grammatical Overview. Charles Andrew Hofling
Advances in Maya Epigraphy
During the past twenty years, significant progress has been made in determining the nature of the Maya script, the subjects covered in the monumental inscriptions, the grammatical structure of Maya writing, and the astronomical content of hieroglyphic texts on the monuments and in the codices. The script is unequivocally logosyllabic in nature, consisting of a mixture of logographic, syllabic, and semantic signs. The monumental texts are primaril…
Astronomical References in the Throne Inscription of the Palace of the Governor at Uxmal
The Palace of the Governor at Uxmal is known from previous scholarship to be associated with Venus in terms of both its sculptural decoration and its orientation, which is aligned to an infrequently occurring extreme position of Venus on the horizon. A hieroglyphic inscription above the central doorway of the Palace is shown here to relate specifically to the concern with Venus and other celestial phenomena. Part of the inscription depicts zodiac…
The Zinacanteco Fiesta of San Sebastian
More on the Mars Table in the Dresden Codex
The suggestion made early in this century that pages 43b to 45b of the Dresden Codex are concerned with the synodic cycle of the planet Mars was vigorously opposed in mid-century by J. Eric S. Thompson but supported during the last decade by other scholarship, including our own. Thompson's interpretation, which Bruce Love has recently argued is correct, is certainly of historical interest and value, but it is no longer adequate in light of more r…
History (31 works) · History (26 works) · Archaeology (25 works) · Latin American history and culture (21 works) · Computer Science (20 works) · Maya (19 works) · Philosophy (17 works) · Art (15 works) · Linguistics (14 works) · Geography (13 works)